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112046-the-role-of-a-guild-leader
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- LOL. Brevity is a virtue too, you know :) I think it's great that people actually agree with my insane ramblings though! | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- I have. Exactly once in over a decade of MMO-gaming. His handle was "Gug" and he was the Warchief of the Horde Strike Force, on the RP-PVP server Maelstrom. Without a doubt, the near-perfect blend of intellect, heart and spirit that made me want to follow him into certain doom on numerous occasions. He was always in-character. He laid out careful battle-plans. He staged raids. He stuck to his guns with even unpopular decisions and he gave us the autonomy to make our own fun within the guidelines he set forth. You couldn't join until you were at least level 40. You couldn't join if you had an Alliance toon on the same server. If you didn't log in for a month, he would boot you. If you ever just quit, you could never come back - but if you took a break and were removed, you were always welcome back with open arms and immediate bestowal of all earned ranks. You didn't HAVE to join the guild events, but if you did (or if you hosted a few), then you could earn rank. In fact, attending RP and RP-PVP events was the ONLY way you could earn rank. He didn't care about your titles, or your raid skills or how many PVP HKs you had. He cared about your heart, how you could add to the guild as a whole and how you represented yourself and group in public channels. Sadly, Gug finally gave up the good fight about six or eight months into Pandaria. He said his goodbyes, passed the guild off to one of his high-ranking officers and quit the game entirely. I followed him about a week later, and have never gone back. It was the best time in my entire gaming experience. I made friends I still have to this day and learned more about running a guild than I ever hoped to. Honestly, he was my role-model at the outset of the Blazing Saddles, but I sadly ran into issues he never had to deal with - and I kind of feel like I've failed his memory in that regard. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- This is a really odd rule -- and also impossible to enforce I think, unless he required everyone to give over their account IDs so he could watch them when they logged on and make sure they didn't roll Alliance. What was the thinking behind this? I mean maybe there was a good reason that I'm just not seeing, but a rule like this would send me scrambling for the door of a Guild because Guild Leaders who try to micromanage aspects of your play experience that are none of their business are an anathema to me. Why would anyone tolerate that kind of micromanaging in a volunteer setting? If I'm contributing to your Guild in a useful way, the number and identity of other characters I roll anywhere else in the game is utterly irrelevant, isn't it? It's certainly not a right I'd give up just to stay in a game Guild. | |} ---- It was mostly an "RP Thing" with him. The Strike Force did city raids, town raids, PVP attacks, patrols and all kinds of open world fighting. The "no Alliance toons" was to prevent (or at least diminish) the amount of spying the other faction could do on us. And yeah, you'd think it was unenforceable or that he was requiring IDs and stuff - but he did enforce it and he didn't ask for IDs. I suspect it had something to do with him comparing new recruits Achievement Scores to the scores of the well-known rivals we'd developed. I saw more than a dozen folks booted without warning, only to inform us later that they had, indeed, being trying to spy on us. Seems weird, I know. But man, it worked and we had a great time doing it. | |} ---- ---- In specific reply to your second question, if a GM is no longer enjoying the game my suggestion to that GM would be strip away the fact that you're "the GM of a guild" whatever fancy connotations that carries with it and return to the simplest state, that you're a person playing a game during their leisure time for personal enjoyment. If it doesn't fulfill that purpose anymore and has no reasonable hope of doing so again (because maybe the next update will be 'the one' that makes you fall in love again), move on. It's not worth trudging through just because it's a responsibility you have for yourself in the absence of enjoyment. That's what jobs are for. There are plenty of things in life we have no real choice in that we must own up to as adults and deal with happy or not, this isn't one of those times. | |} ---- Having been in this situation before there are only four options. 1) Find someone you trust to carry on the legacy, and pass the torch. 2) Find another guild you respect with similar goals and ideals, and merge with them. 3) Look for another game that you and your guild members all agree on, and move. 4) Gather everyone together, let them know that it was a good run, but that you personally need to move on, and ask them what they want to do. To be honest which ones work best really depend on the makeup of the guild. I've done all four at one point or another, for differing reasons (burnout, life changes, etc). And each of them has an equal chance of success or failure. The most important thing though is that the guild leader needs to be up front and honest with the members about what's going on. And they need to be willing to stick things out through the transition if at all possible. As the leader it's as much about swallowing your pride and saying "guys, I have to step down" as anything else. The one other thing the leader has to understand is that if you hit this point, there's no going back. You can't come back to the guild or the game six months later and pick things back up again. It won't be the same - not for you, and not for them. | |} ---- This kind of happened last night with me. I was the GM, the megaserver took a lot of the wind from my sails. My guild reminded me that as long as we're having fun together, that's all that mattered. You know what they're right too. I realized that no matter how angry I am at Carbine for poor decisions, as long as I'm playing with people I enjoy that's all that matters. | |} ----